Cloning EP (or custom) content with CTU (and S3PE)

[Whiterudder]

Tutorial:Cloning EP content with CTU

It's amazing what you can do in a morning, aside from forgetting to have lunch. Comments, questions etc all welcome.

[emhpb]

YES! Thank you for this! I haven't read it yet, but it should help me a LOT on my CC adventures. :D

[Cocomama]

Great work, another very nice tutorial Whiterider !! :up:

If you have a copy of all the fullbuilds in My Documents, and always open that with S3pe to extract files from, there should be no conflicts because CTU uses the fullbuilds in the Program files.
I really love the way you have explained it all, now its also easy to extract the base meshes with CTU.

I have not succesfully made new textures for an expansion mesh yet, but that probably is something I did wrong. :D
Maybe you could add a bit about that, and what you can and can not do with the new package at the end of your tutorial?

[Whiterudder]

Yes, that's a good point about having copies of the fullbuild files - I'll add that later. :)
Well, as far as I know, you should be able to do anything with the file that you could with a normal basegame-cloned file - although I haven't actually tried much beyond a simple texture replacement, so there may be stuff I've overlooked.

[jilliebee22]

This is a great tutorial! It was really easy to follow. And you saved me! Thank you soo much!

EDIT:

I'm having a problem with the custom mesh. It doesn't show my texture. I tried it on a CAS mesh and it shows up fine. But when I put it on the custom mesh it doesn't show up. :(

[Kiara24]

Great tutorial! Thanks! :)

[Whiterudder]

jilliebee22, does the texture work in the CTU preview? If not, what do you get - no texture, the old texture, something else?

[GnatGoSplat]

I've been trying to follow along with the Wiki, but I'm not sure what this is supposed to do. Is it supposed to make EP items show up in CTU? I'm using the most recent CTU and have added all the Fullbuild*.package files as shown, but the EP items don't show up in CTU. I'm thinking maybe I've misunderstood something, because the next step of having to manually dig for the meshes in the Fullbuild*.package files in s3pe kind of implies they can't be extracted by CTU. I guess I'm just all around confused!

[Whiterudder]

No. This tutorial covers how to clone EP or custom content manually - it doesn't make the content show up in CTU. Adding the FullBuild files to the options in CTU is to enable CTU to load the mesh and textures in the preview.

[tonya3507]

Thanks for the awesome tutorial!
I tried to change categories for custom package files (not sims3pack) after I read your tutorial. Opened my file with CTU and changed the category for the clothes and commit save. The thing is it awfully slowed down my game loading...
Did I do something wrong? No one seems to have this kind of problem..

[sushirice25]

This is working...so far. When I try to export my package, it only gives me the option to open, so I can't save my file. Help, please?

[Whiterudder]

You're exporting from S3PE, I take it? Once you've typed a filename, you should be able to hit Open or Save or whatever the button says and have it work.


Also, this method may well not be the quickest and easiest any more, as S3OC can now clone CAS content.

[sushirice25]

Oh. Junior moment. I forgot to add a filename. I feel stupid. Thanks though!

[poppyberry]

woohoo! I read instructions and it works! Thanks so much for this tutorial! I had a bit of a problem with the same thing sushirice25 had.

[poppyberry]

I have just had a message that the new tshirts I have made using this method have made the star tshirt in generations go missing. Is there any way to fix this? Thanks.

[Whiterudder]

Something went wrong with step 3.3 - when you were changing the Instance. Redo that bit. :)

[poppyberry]

Would I be able to amend the files I have made or should I redo them altogether?

[Whiterudder]

You don't need to start again, just use the files you already have.

[poppyberry]

Thanks for your help! I was able to find the incorrect file, I think I had just missed the step where you give it the new number thingy, everything is fine now and only one file was bad.

[random.person]

Thanks so much for this tutorial <3

I'm going to make all toddlers and childrens clothing, hair and other things available for both sexes, so since I'm not actually going to be changing how they look, would there be any point in making them non default replacements?

[poppyberry]

Just made some clones of the teen generations scoop neck tshirt. However they all still have the silly star logo on them, anyone know if it can be removed and if so how?

[Whiterudder]

poppyberry, in CTU, go to Designs, pick whichever design has the stencil on it; then under the Stencils tab, make sure all the dropdowns are set to None. Commit and save. :)

random.person, well, kinda depends how you look at it :p . If you're not changing anything, then you can do it either way - a default replacement is neater, but a non-default can't ever conflict with anything.
Either way, I would suggest changing the gender flags in S3PE - you don't need to use CTU at all for something so small.

[poppyberry]

poppyberry, in CTU, go to Designs, pick whichever design has the stencil on it; then under the Stencils tab, make sure all the dropdowns are set to None. Commit and save. :)

random.person, well, kinda depends how you look at it :p . If you're not changing anything, then you can do it either way - a default replacement is neater, but a non-default can't ever conflict with anything.
Either way, I would suggest changing the gender flags in S3PE - you don't need to use CTU at all for something so small.

Thank you. I just checked and it does show all at none already and I never chose a stencil one, but it has the stencil/logo in game :(

[Whiterudder]

In that case, check the Logo tab, and also the overlay texture - if it's not one of those, it's magic. :)

[poppyberry]

Ah...well, must be magic...lol. Defo not an overlay, I deal with those all the time. Logo is clear too.

[Whiterudder]

D'you want to attach the package, and I can see if I can work out where it's coming from?

[poppyberry]

Thank you for taking the time to check for me. Here is one of them :D

[Whiterudder]

Very odd - just a normal stencil, I've no idea why CTU wasn't picking it up. Anyway, I've yanked it out of the TGI and the XML, all fixed. :)


You said that's one of them - do you have others which are stuck with the same stencil? If so, I can put together some very simple instructions for fixing them. :)

[poppyberry]

Very odd - just a normal stencil, I've no idea why CTU wasn't picking it up. Anyway, I've yanked it out of the TGI and the XML, all fixed. :)


You said that's one of them - do you have others which are stuck with the same stencil? If so, I can put together some very simple instructions for fixing them. :)

Thank you so very much :D Yes, I have 7 others and also would be good to know how to do it.

[Whiterudder]

Don't be put off by how long the instructions are. The simpler you make something the longer it gets, because you can't miss any tiny steps out. ;)

Ok. :) You will need S3PE. You should have S3PE already anyway, because it makes everything more fun :D .

Open your .package file in S3PE
If you've only just installed S3PE, tick the Names and Tags boxes at the bottom of the window.
Go to Settings -> External Programs, tick the "Use an external text editor" box, and then use the Browse button to point to Notepad++ (if you have it), or just plain old notepad.
Back in the main window, find the resource in the list with the tag CASP. Select it, and hit Grid at the bottom.
Basically, we have to replace the TGI reference (ID number) of the stencil images with that of a blank, transparent image. The stencil will still technically be there, but since it'll be transparent, it won't make any difference to the look of the top in-game.
The TGI references we have to replace are these:
0x00B2D882-0x38000000-0xB84EAA5F20578C43
0x00B2D882-0x38000000-0xB84EAA5F20578C40
0x00B2D882-0x38000000-0xB84EAA5F20578C41
And we're going to replace all three of them with this one: 0x00B2D882-0x00000000-0x75F8F21E0F143CAC
Bear in mind that the format of the references isn't always the same. The numbers and letters are always present, but sometimes there are : instead of - and so on. I'll tell you exactly what to put where, just don't skip over the details because the reference *looks* the same as last time - it may not be :p .

Mkay, back to work:
At the bottom of the Grid window, is a line called TGI Blocks. Select it, then click the ... button at the end.
In the TGI Blocks window, you'll notice that the references are split up into three sections. The last section is the "most" unique, and the easiest to spot in a list. So, scroll down until you find the three references I listed above. They'll be in the top few lines, the ones marked with the _IMG tag.
Select the first one, and you can edit each of the three sections via the text boxes on the right. The Type can stay as it is, the Group just needs the 38 changed to 00. Copy this into the Instance box: 0x75F8F21E0F143CAC
Repeat for all three, then hit Save. :)
That's changed the master list of textures that the item looks for. Unfortunately, TS3 is stubborn and likes to ignore the master list. So we have to change it elsewhere too. ;)

Back in the Grid window, select the line that says Presets, and hit the ... button.
In the new window, select the line marked XmlFile, hit the little down arrow, and click Edit. If the Edit button is greyed out, you did something wrong in the Settings window earlier. :)
Don't panic! Yeah yeah, I know, looks like code. It is, but it's friendly code, and you don't need to read it anyway.
Hit Ctrl-F and search for 00B2D882:38000000:B84EAA5F20578C43
You should only find that TGI reference once in the file. When you've found it, replace it with 00B2D882:00000000:75F8F21E0F143CAC
Repeat, searching for 00B2D882:38000000:B84EAA5F20578C40 and 00B2D882:38000000:B84EAA5F20578C41
Save and close notepad.
Back in S3PE, if you have more than one design on a top, then there will be several Presets listed in the left of the "top" S3PE window (preset and design are synonyms in this context). You'll need to do the above for all of them.
Once you've finished fiddling with XML, hit OK, Commit, and Save. Done. :)

After you've done this, when adding new designs in CTU, always hit Add New -> Copy Last - that saves you having to do this all over again afterwards :p .

[poppyberry]

Thank you very much! I am so glad you wrote it all so simply. Will have a good look at this tomorrow and let you know how I get on. I have sp3e of course, couldn't live without it...lol

[poppyberry]

Just done it on a file...off to test :-)

[Whiterudder]

Good luck!

[poppyberry]

Yey! I managed to remove all the stencils, 2 of the files lost all their pattern for some reason, so I will try remake those sometime. Thank you for the instructions, very very helpful! The only thing I'd say that made it easier once I knew what I was doing was in notepad to search for stencil, that way, the stencils I needed to replace just seemed to present themselves in order making the whole process really easy. Thannks again...now if I knew how to remove the bumpmaps from custom meshes too, I'd be in heaven...lol

[Sanus Ex Machina]

Hi there, I've been following this tutorial to clone a custom mesh so I can replace its texture (this (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6c9e8d260100n0i3.html) top mesh by Sasha J, to be precise), and everything seemed to go smoothly enough, however once I got to the final step, it wouldn't show up properly in CTU. I have the original mesh added to CTU's available resources; it just says no mesh loaded in the corner of the 3D view window, and it throws errors and shows blank textures when I go to the Designs tab. I feel like the solution is something really silly that I've missed, but any help would be appreciated.

Edit: It also gives a "key is not in the correct format" notice whenever I open the original mesh with CTU and doesn't load anything in the 3D window either.

[omegastarr82]

Hi there, I've been following this tutorial to clone a custom mesh so I can replace its texture (this (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6c9e8d260100n0i3.html) top mesh by Sasha J, to be precise), and everything seemed to go smoothly enough, however once I got to the final step, it wouldn't show up properly in CTU. I have the original mesh added to CTU's available resources; it just says no mesh loaded in the corner of the 3D view window, and it throws errors and shows blank textures when I go to the Designs tab. I feel like the solution is something really silly that I've missed, but any help would be appreciated.

Edit: It also gives a "key is not in the correct format" notice whenever I open the original mesh with CTU and doesn't load anything in the 3D window either.

Sounds like she may have made that using TSRW, so try using that. (I've only ever gotten "key is not in the correct format" when switching from one to the other, has something to do with the textures.)

[Whiterudder]

Yeah, some content made in TSRW just doesn't co-operate with CTU - I've no idea why, I'm afraid.

[Sanus Ex Machina]

Oh darn, I was afraid of that. Well, thank you both for the quick replies! c:

[Cupcake_Cutie]

I loved your tutorial and it was very informative.

Is there any way to make it so anyone can use the clothing item I create, not just people who have that particular EP?

[LongLiveHarryPotter7]

It shows nearly no files :( 'Cloning'-->'(experimental) CAS Part'--> Way too few files. There is only one EP2 and very little of the others too. Please help? :'(